dual booting Ubuntu 13.04 and Windows 7 (solved)

[Gerhard Magnus]

I had been trying for some time to set up dual booting Ubuntu 13.04 
(with / on a solid state drive and /home on a 1TB SATA drive) on a new 
box using the Intel DB75EN motherboard with Windows 7 preinstalled. 
Although the shop where I had it built does not "do linux" I was able to 
interest one of the techs in helping me solve this problem. We were 
finally successful after reformatting the drives (previously with GPT 
partitioning) to the old MBR standard (max 4 primary partitions, max 2TB 
hard drives, etc.) and setting the BIOS to its "legacy boot" mode. After 
re-installing Windows 7 I was able to install Ubuntu 13.04 using the 
"something else" option on the installation menu (which I had been 
unable to do before). Now when I boot up I get the familiar grub menu 
with Ubuntu at the top and Windows as a lower-down option. Where Windows 
belongs, by the way.

The tech said Microsoft considers Google to be much more of a threat 
than linux in terms of the installation of non-Windows software on 
Microsoft-occupied boxes. He also said dual booting a Microsoft OS with 
anything would be much more difficult with Windows 8.

Thanks for the help on this list -- I've learned a lot.